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The U.S. Congress is back and the U.S. House of Representatives is already roiling, as exemplified by the lobbyists and pundits who trail members and staff through the halls and into their offices. Republicans are already desperate to regain momentum after tripping out of the starting gate, even astride their newly minted control of both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue—a “trifecta” in Washington lexicon. Many backroom negotiations are inevitable, and the idea that a massive legislative package will be easier to pass could run into the reality that members will want innumerable concessions to take tough votes. The process will bog down, and Republicans must find something else to do. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has already fingered the most promising possibility—killing Biden Administration rules under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The CRA allows narrow majorities in Congress to pass “resolutions of disapproval” for recently issued final rules.

On January 15, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) will take up the nomination of Russell Vought to be president-elect Donald Trump’s Director of the Office of Management Budget (OMB). Vought’s nomination lacks the potential fireworks of Pete Hegseth (Secretary of the Department of Defense), Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. (Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services), or Tulsi Gabbard (Director of National Intelligence), but his confirmation hearing will arguably be the most important of all Trump’s nominees.

Pending House spending bills confirm that conservative members of Congress are all in on Project 2025. Specifically, I reviewed the nearly 500 “poison pill riders” that have been crammed into those measures, and I found over 300 that were aimed at advancing specific recommendations contained in Project 2025’s comprehensive policy blueprint.

A government that recognizes that it has an affirmative responsibility to address social and economic harms that threaten the stability of our democracy. An empowered and well-resourced administrative state that helps carry out this responsibility by, among other things, collaborating with affected members of the public, particularly members of structurally marginalized communities, while marshaling its own independent expertise. We believe that these are some of the core principles that should make up a progressive vision of an administrative state.

When I think about what makes the Center for Progressive Reform the “Center for Progressive Reform,” one name comes to mind: Rena Steinzor. This year, Rena is officially retiring from her “day job” as Professor of Law at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law, so it is a fitting occasion to reflect on what her “side hustle” at the Center meant for the organization and for me personally.

The U.S. administrative state does not merely protect Americans against those threats that we are unable to protect ourselves from on our own. It is essential to a healthy economy, it provides a crucial platform for democratic self-government, and it functions as a great social equalizer. All of this is now at risk after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservatives issued four separate decisions largely along ideological lines aimed at eviscerating this crucial institution. The administrative state has been built over the course of nearly 250 years, slowly and pragmatically, since the founding; it has taken just three decision days for the Court to undo much of that work.

The American public is lucky to have the federal administrative state. Every day, it protects all of us from harms like heavily polluted air, consistently contaminated drinking water, and dangerous workplaces. It strengthens our democracy. And it ensures a fairer, healthier, and more inclusive economy. The good news is that the self-aggrandizing U.S. Supreme Court decision in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless, Inc. v. Department of Commerce does not change that. And that is because it cannot change that.

Earlier this week, the conservative House Republican Study Committee (RSC) issued a memo on how the party’s lawmakers should respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s pending decisions in a pair of cases called Loper Bright v. Raimondo and Relentless v. Department of Commerce. In these cases, the Court is considering whether to overturn a 40-year-old legal doctrine called Chevron deference, which guides reviewing courts to defer to agencies’ reasonable interpretations of their statutory authority when relevant provisions are unclear.

As discussed in yesterday’s post, the contemporary conservative movement is prepared to use legal battles over esoteric administrative law doctrines, such as Chevron deference, as a tool of ideological warfare. Importantly, though, these battles present progressives with a great opportunity to engage at the ideological level as well. After all, progressives have been busy developing their own competing vision of what our constitutional democracy should look like. They should seize the opportunity presented by the fight over Chevron deference’s future to articulate and advance that vision.